The Destiny of the Soul: A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future LifeAlger, William Rounseville
Religion
The Destiny of the Soul: A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life
Alger, William Rounseville
Future life -- Christianity -- Bibliography; Future life -- Christianity -- History of doctrines
consists. The loss of their equipoise soon terminates them both;
and that is death. Upon the whole, then, scientifically speaking,
to cause death is to stop "that continuous differentiation and
integration of tissues and of states of consciousness"
constituting life. 2 Death, therefore, is no monster, no force,
but the act of completion, the state of cessation; and all the
bugbears named death are but poor phantoms of the frightened and
childish mind.
Life consisting in the constant differentiation of the tissues by
the action of oxygen, and their integration from the blastema
furnished by the blood, why is not the harmony of these processes
preserved forever? Why should the relation between the integration
and disintegration going on in the human organism ever fall out of
correspondence with the relation between the oxygen and food
supplied from its environment? That is to say, whence originated
the sentence of death upon man? Why do we not live immortally as
we are? The current reply is, we die because our first parent
sinned. Death is a penalty inflicted upon the
2 Spencer, Principles of Psychology, pp. 334-373.
human race because Adam disobeyed his Maker's command. We must
consider this theory a little.
The narrative in Genesis, of the creation of man and of the events
in the Garden of Eden, cannot be traced further back than to the
time of Solomon, three thousand years after the alleged
occurrences it describes. This portion of the book of Genesis, as
has long been shown, is a distinct document, marked by many
peculiarities, which was inserted in its present place by the
compiler of the elder Hebrew Scriptures somewhere between seven
and ten centuries before Christ.3 Ewald has fully demonstrated
that the book of Genesis consists of many separate fragmentary
documents of different ages, arranged together by a comparatively
late hand. Among the later of these pieces is the account of the
primeval pair in paradise. Grotefend argues, with much force and
variety of evidence, that this story was derived from a far more
ancient legend book, only fragments of which remained when the
final collection was made of this portion of the Old Testament.4
Many scholars have thought the account was not of Hebrew origin,
but was borrowed from the literary traditions of some earlier
Oriental nation. Rosenmuller, Von Bohlen, and others, say it bears
unmistakable relationship to the Zendavesta which tells how
Ahriman, the old Serpent, beguiled the first pair into sin and
misery. These correspondences, and also that between the tree of
life and the Zoroastrian plant hom, which gives life and will
produce the resurrection, are certainly striking. Buttmann sees in
God's declaration to Adam, "Behold, I have given you for food
every herb bearing seed, and every tree in which is fruit bearing
seed," traces of a prohibition of animal food. This was not the
vestige of a Hebrew usage, but the vegetarian tradition of some
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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